11.20 Allergic Reaction and date rape?

The waitress spoke in a bland sort of voice with no real expression to it, and it was obvious that she had memorized all the specials and menu highlights as a spiel, and would be thrown off if interupted. Matt continued playing, and Celeste forced herself not to blush, not to move, not to do anything that might either reveal what he was doing or make him stop.
Suddenly, he pulled his hand away, and the world returned around her. Matt and the waitress were staring at her expectantly.
“I’m sorry, I think my head was completely in the clouds,” Celeste said. “Could I have just another minute?”
“Just drinks, Celeste,” Matt whispered.
“Oh, sorry,” she stammered. “Diet coke, please. With lemon.”
The waitress noted the beverage on her pad, and walked away. Matt picked up his menu, and started to flip through the pages.
“The Cambodian chicken soup here is amazing,” Matt commented. “I think I’m going to order the Lemongrass Chicken, though.”
“Hm…” Celeste said, focusing more on regaining her sense of mental balance than on what she was going to order.
“What are you going to get, Celeste?” Matt prompted.
“I think I’ll try the…” she cast about the menu, which was written half in french and half in Cambodian. There were what looked like brief descriptions under each item, unfortunately they were in French. Celeste struggled to remember some of the basic food items from her high school French vocabulary. How in God’s name did Matt know what was what? Finally she found something that looked familiar, even if she didn’t really know what it was. “Poulet Dhomrei,” she said. Poulet was chicken, she recalled vaguely. And what could you possibly to do chicken?
The waitress returned just after they put their menus down, and matt proceded to order for both of them. “We’d both like to start with bowls of the cambodian chicken soup. For my entrée, I’d like the Poulet a la Citronelle. Please hold the peanuts. Celeste would like the Poulet Dhomrei.” He looked at her questioningly, to make sure she didn’t have any “hold the’s” or “extras”.
“That’s it,” Celeste said. “And another diet coke, please, when you have a chance.”
The waitress nodded, made notes on her notebook, took Celeste’s glass and the menus and went off to the kitchen.
“I thought you were going to get the Lemongrass Chicken instead of the soup, not in addition?”
“Well, I couldn’t have you not try the soup… and besides, I’m done working for the day. I’m taking a relaxation day.”
“Ah, would that we were all so lucky… I have this slave driver for a boss…” she grinned, and raised an eyebrow teasingly.
He snorted. “I think you’ll do just fine, Miss I’m Two Weeks Ahead of Schedule.”
“Speaking of that,” she said, “Do you have any time this weekend or early next week to help me with that software? I’d like to have some idea of how to use it before I start needing it.”
“Maybe on Monday?”
“Sure, that’d be great.”
Business once again out of the way, they concentrated on in depth getting to know you chit-chat. [###I need another date between this one and the kissing debacle at the end of the last one. They’ve just barely kissed, and now he’s playing with her hoo-hoo in the restaurant? WTF? ###] “So what have you been up to this week?” Matt asked.
“Well, I’ve been working on the boo a lot,” Celeste responded, “and I went out to the North End for dinner with my roommate last night.”
“Ooh, where?” Matt asked. The North End was Boston’s Little Italy, so generally mentioning it in conversation led to a discussion about the pros and cons of different restaurants, and different styles of Italian food.
Celeste told him, which led to the usual discussion about whether their vegetarian lasagna made the restaurant too American to really fit into the classic North End restaurant lineup. “Mike’s pastries, though,” Matt mused. “It’s not just Italian, but it definitely makes the best cannoli that I’ve ever had.”
“A friend of mine just got an apartment in the North End,” Celeste said, “and she told me that there’s a butcher shop just next to her apartment building. She went on vacation for a week, and didn’t think to mention it to the older guy that owns the butcher shop. When she got back, he actually lectured her about worrying him, he’d thought something happened, and actually had the landlord of the building open her apartmnent to make sure that she wasn’t hurt on the floor inside or something. That’s the type of neighborhood that you never really find around here.”
“That’s true,” Matt said. “I can’t even get my neighbor to feed my cat when I’m gone.”
“Ooh, you have a cat? What it look like? I’ve wanted a cat for a couple of years, but my roommate is allergic to them.”
“She’s completely white except for the tip of her nose and her ears, which are black. I found her a couple years ago, while I was on summer vacation during high school in Florida. If you can believe it, I was walking around with my parents at the Polynesian resort at Disney, and we saw what looked like a white bunny rolling around on the pavement near the arcade. I looked a little closer and it turns out that it was a kitten. I caught her, and checked with the hotel to make sure that no one was missing at cat, and my parents wound up buying a cat carrier and food and everything, and paying extra for my ticket home so I could get her home with me.”
He laughed, “I wasn’t really a cat person before that, but she was so cute, and it was just fate, I think.” He shrugged. “I named her ‘Polly’ because of the hotel where we found her. We thing she was probably a Hurricane Andrew refugee because we went on vacation literally the week after the storm.”
“Talk about good luck,” Celeste said.
Before she had a chance to say anything else, the horsey faced waitress appeared, accompanied by two empty bowls and a tea pot looking device. Celeste wrinkled her brow in confusion, but before she had a chance to ask, the waitress put the two bowls down on the table, and began to pour the soup out of the tea pot thing. It looked like normal chicken soup but with large chunks of (apparently) real chicken, and chili peppers and lemongrass instead of the normal Cambell’s noodles and carrots.
She took a cautious bite, but it was absolutely delicious. The broth itself was rich, the chicken was tender, and the chili peppers provided a nice spicy bite, but not too hot as to overwhelm the rest of the soup. She and Matt focused on eating, and very soon both bowls were completely empty. Celeste almost wished she hadn’t ordered an entrée so that she could rationalize ordering another bowl of soup.
“Mmm, that was good,” she said as she put her soup spoon down.
Matt smiled, “I told you that you needed to try it.”
“That’s the kind of I told you so that I enjoy,” Celeste joked.
The soup hadn’t even had a chance to settle before their meals were brought out. Matt’s looked delicious, a grilled cornish game hen on a bed of rice noodles with lemongrass, red peppers, and snow peas on the side.
Celeste’s was more a stew or stir fry, which she hadn’t expected. Her chicken was cut into pieces, with red pepper, peanuts, chili pepper, snow peas, and scallions. It was all served in a milky yellowish broth that tasted strongly of curry. It tasted pretty good, she thought, even if it was kind of nasty looking. She ate some more, savoring the broth, and eating some of the vegetables. She took a bite of something that she didn’t recognize along with a piece of chicken.
Suddenly, Celeste’s mouth was on fire. She looked vainly around the table for her diet coke, but the waitress had apparently forgotten to bring it back when she took it for refilling. Celeste’s eyes filled up with tears, and her mouth felt burning and numb at the same time. Finally, with no real respite available, she held her napkin up to her mouth and spit out whatever the incendiary substance that she put into her mouth with that bite was.
Matt looked at her, slightly concerned. Celeste had been slightly flailing her arms, and he was a little worried that she was choking but didn’t know the universal choking gesture. “What’s wrong?” he said.
Celeste cleared her throat, and tried to say “I bit into something hot,” but when she opened her mouth nothing came out. She cleared her throat again. This time, she managed to croak out, “I ate something a little too hot.”
Matt started laughing. “You must have eated one of the chili piquines that they put in for flavoring. You aren’t supposed to eat those.”
Celeste gave him the finger, and he laughed even harder, but he waved over the waitress. “Could she get her diet coke, and also a glass of milk and some bread?”
The waitress nodded, and walked away. She came back moments later with the items that Matt had mentioned. She also brought a glass of iced tea. “If the food is too spicy, iced tea is better to drink with it than diet coke. It’s on the house.”
Celeste looked up and gratefully nodded her thanks before downing the milk in a matter of about three seconds. Then she shoved a piece of bread into her mouth and chewed on that for a while before washing it down with the glass of iced tea.
Matt was cracking up on his side of the table while she was doing this. After Celeste put the iced tea down, she turned to him and once again, gave him the finger. Celeste noticed that Matt was looking concerned again, so she cleared her throat and managed to get out, “What’s wrong?”
“Uh…um…Celeste, are you allergic to anything?”
“I’m,” she cleared her throat again, her throat was feeling a little swollen, “I’m allergic to coconut.”
“Aw, shit,” he said, “didn’t you read the description on the menu? It’s a coconut milk broth!”
“It wasn’t in English,” Celeste managed to get out before she ran to the bathroom. Fortunately, she was carrying an epipen in her purse. She injected herself, and sat on the toilet with her head between her knees, waiting for some of the symptoms to subside. She could still breathe, but her throat was definitely clogged up, and if if prior experience was any indication, she also looked a fright.
When she felt a little steadier, she emerged from the bathroom carrying her purse. She approached Matt at the table, and said “I have to go to my doctor’s. Will you take me there?”
Matt stood quickly, and flung two twenties onto the table. He grabbed Celeste’s elbow, and helped her out the door. As soon as they stepped out onto Memorial Drive, he flung up his arm to flag a cabbie.
“It’s not that much of an emergency,” Celeste said. “How did you get here? Your car, or the T?”
“My car, but I parked a ways away.”
“I can walk, I just need to get to the doctor’s within an hour or so.”

On the way, Celeste dialed her general practitioner on her cell phone. She explained the situation, and the nurse receptionist assured her that yes, she did need to come in, and yes, of course the doctor would be able to fit her in.
The doctor’s office wasn’t particularly busy when they arrived, so Celeste was able to get right into the office. She sat on the examining table, and Matt took a seat in the chair by the door. He looked antsy, and Celeste really couldn’t blame him. If only she hadn’t been such an idiot, and had asked for a translation. He apprarently knew what the things on the menu were.
The doctor took her blood pressure, which was normal, and asked her what happened.
Celeste rolled her eyes, “You know I’m allergic to bees, so I always carry the epipen in my purse. Well…apparently, I’m allergic to coconut as well. It’s always made me a little itchy, but I’ve never really had a reaction to it. Well, I guess I’ve never had it as concentrated as it was in that soup!”
The doctor gave her albuterol, because she was still having trouble breathing, whether it was from the pepper or the coconut, she didn’t know. One way or the other, it helped to relieve her breathing, and she was able to talk easier.
The doctor left she and Matt in the room, and shut the door behind him, giving Celeste orders to rest for twenty minutes or so, and if she felt ok, she could go home.
Celeste laughed a little self conciously, scrubbed a hand through her hair, and said “I’m sorry, I know this completely wasn’t in the plan for today. You don’t have to wait with me if you don’t want to.”
Matt was swaying a little in his chair, and focusing desparately at a spot on the floor where the tiles crossed. He looked up at her, and she noticed that he was unusually pale. “I don’t mind, I just don’t do well around doctors and needles, and… Excuse me,” very quickly he bent over and put his head between his knees.
Celeste looked on worriedly. “Should I call the doctor? Or get you some water, or something?”
“No, no, just sit. I’ll be fine. Well, water would be good…”
Celeste jumped down from the table, and filled one of the small plastic cups with water from the sink. She also wet a paper towel with cold water. She applied the paper towel to Matt’s neck, idly rubbing his hair until he sat up. She handed him the water, and he sipped at it.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Sometimes I just can’t handle anything medically related. Even the thought of anything makes me feel really lightheaded. I’m fine now, though.”
Celeste still looked a little worried, but it was easier not to argue, and they were in a doctor’s office, after all. “This has been a great afternoon,” she commented.
‘So I get it now, though” he said. “I was thinking you were really weird for ordering something that you were allergic to, but you’ve never really been allergic to it before?”
“Well, sort of,” Celeste said. “It’s not something I would have ordered if I knew what it was – my menu was completely in Cambodian and French. But additionally, I’ve never really had a reaction to coconut products or coconut itself before – for example, I can eat Mounds candy bars with no problem. I guess real coconut is different, though. Or it could just be that I reacted to it for no real reason at all.”
“All I can say is, it’s a good thing that you had that needle thing with you.”
“Yeah, I always carry it. I’m deathly allergic to bee stings, and unlike food, bees pretty unpredictable.”
Matt suddenly put his head back between his knees. “Sorry, I was thinking about that needle of yours, and… ugh…”
“Here,” Celeste said, rummaging through her purse. She tossed him a Jolly Rancher. “Eat that, the sugar should help. It wouldn’t surprise me if the adrenaline from my reaction and getting me here is wearing off, and you’ve got low blood sugar.”
He unwrapped the candy, and put it in his mouth. He slowly sat back up again, looking pale and completely embarrassed.
“Don’t worry,” Celeste said. “If it makes you feel any better, I can’t handle pain at all. One thing that’s really funny –a few years ago, I needed a filling and I went to my father’s dentist up in New York. I had never been to the guy before, so I went in, and I got a cleaning, and he was all ready to do the filling. He goes through the whole novocaine procedure, and I’m doing ok, except that my mouth isn’t completely numb. So I tell the dentist that, and he tells me I’m crazy, and pulls out the dental drill. He starts drilling, and of course, it hurts, so I ask for more novocaine. Finally, the guy gives me more novocaine, and starts drilling again, and it’s still not completely numb. Finally it really starts to hurt, and then his hand slips and he nicks my gum. I hate pain, did I mention that? So I make a screeching sound, and jerk away.”
Matt was looking interested and less like a corpse, so she continued.
“The dentist tossed down the drill, said he can’t work on a patient like me, and told me never to come back. Finally, the hygeniest convinced him that he can’t just make me walk out of there with a half drilled tooth, so he finishes the filling, and then he re-interates that I’m never to return. My father’s never let me forget that one.”
Matt laughed, “I guess my medical fear isn’t so bad, then. At least it’s not as general as ‘pain’. What’ll happen when you have a baby?”
“Well, at that point, I keep telling myself that I won’t have any choice. Sortof like when you get on a roller coaster. By the time the car starts moving, you can’t get off, so you kind of have to grit your teeth and be a big girl about it.”
Twenty minutes passed before they realized it, with no further allergic reactions from Celeste, and no further lightheadedness from Matt. The doctor rejoined them, and tested Celeste’s blood pressure again.
“You seem good enough,” he said. “We can keep you here for the rest of the afternoon, if you feel like you need to have someone keep an eye out for other symptoms, or you can go home and rest there.”
“Home,” Celeste quickly said, cutting off the last few words of the doctor’s sentence.
“I don’t think you quite caught what I said,” the doctor said, amused. “Rest. At home. Nothing Else. Period.”
“No, I got it,” Celeste said. “I’ll go home, rest on the couch for the afternoon, wake up with a throbbing headache from the epinepherine, go back to sleep, and feel fine tomorrow. And if I don’t,” she added quickly, “I’ll call a taxi to take me here, or an ambulance to take me to the hospital.”
The doctor laughed. “I know, you’ve been through this a few times before. Just keep in mind that you’ve never done this with a food allergy before, so you’re more likely to have the reaction go a way you wouldn’t expect.”
Celeste nodded, she really did understand, it wasn’t that she was just rushing to get out of there.
The doctor scrawled a new prescription for an epipen for Celeste, gave her a sample that he had on hand, just in case her allergy acted up and she didn’t have an extra. Then he escorted them out into the waiting room.
“Don’t forget,” he said. “Rest. Nothing else. Just go home and take a nap.”
Celeste smiled. “I know, I know. I’m going directly home, and,” she looked at her watch, “it looks like I’ll get there just in time to catch Oprah.”
“I said rest, not rot your brain,” the doctor said. “I’m just joking, but please take it easy.”
They left the office, and Matt offered to drop Celeste off at home. When they arrived, he pulled up into a parking space in front of the apartment.
“You don’t have to go,” she said.
“The doctor told you to rest, though.” Matt responded. “I’d love to stay, but I defiantely feel like I should go. I’ve got to get some work done tomorrow, do you want to meet me at the library, mid afternoon? Bring the book, and I can show you on my laptop how to use that software?”
Celeste was a little disappointed, but she didn’t really show it. “Sure,” she said, “that sounds good.”
She got out of the car, and started walking to her apartment. Matt pulled out of the parking spot, and tapped on his horn as he drove off. Celeste waved, and then went inside.
It was kind of good, really, that Matt didn’t want to stay, because Celeste wasn’t really feeling up to doing anything. The epinephrine in the epipen made you feel up and perfectly fine for a couple of hours, but after that she just felt tired but twitchy. Almost like she had a lot mental energy, but no physical energy whatsoever. She made it far enough into her apartment to grab her blanket and pillow off her bed, drag it behind her to the couch, and cuddle up before falling fast asleep.
She woke up when Jeanne’s key rattled in the lock. “It’s open,” she yelled.
Jeanne walked in. “What’s wrong,” she said. “Are you sick?” Her tone of voice was almost accusatory.
“I’m allergic to coconut,” Celeste responded. “I had to use my epipen, and then go to the doctors.”
Jeanne had been nearby the last time Celeste was stung by a bee, and knew from experience that an allergic reaction wasn’t a pretty sight. “Are you ok?” she asked, sounding more sympathetic .
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just having a reaction headache, and I was really tired when I got home.”
“So was your graduate student there when this all happened?”
“Yeah,” Celeste cringed. “He was actually really good about it, though, he took me to the doctors and brought me home and all.”
“God, that sucks, Celeste,” Jeanne commisserated.
Celeste shrugged, “That’s ok, I didn’t really need a boyfriend anyway. And besides, don’t they say that you should always avoid having a relationship with someone that you work with?”
“Well, yeah,” Jeanne said. “But I think your circumstances might be a little far from the norm. Besides, he might think it’s cute or something. Did he tell you he’d call you or anything?”
“No, I’m supposed to meet him at the library tomorrow afternoon, and he will show me how to use that indexing software I was telling you about. It’s nothing I couldn’t figure out on my own, but it’ll give me an excuse to see him again, and be sure that he’s as revolted as he probably is.”
“I’m sure he’s not at all revolted,” Jeanne said, loyally.
Celeste shrugged, and went back to sleep. Jeanne puttered around the house for awhile, and then Celeste heard her leave, probably to visit Jessica and Scott.
Around two or so in the morning, she woke up again, feeling a lot better. The headache was gone, and she was hungry. From experience, though, she knew that no matter how hungery she felt, her stomach couldn’t pallete much. She fixed herself a couple slices of buttered toast, and a cup of peppermint tea.
Celeste turned on the television, and started randomly flipping through the channels looking for something other than an infomercial or soft-core pornography.
Finding nothing of interest, she had just turned the television off, when Celeste heard a key rattle in the lock. There was no way Jeanne would be out this late, would she?
That question was answered quickly, when Jeanne stumbled in, obviously drunk. An old man stumbled in behind her. He was tall, at least six and a half feet, and balding, with an obvious comb-over. Jeanne was giggling a little. She turned and looked at Celeste on the couch, shrugged, grabbed the old guy’s hand, and pulled him into her bedroom behind her.
Ugh, Celeste thought, disgusted. As far as she knew, Jeanne wasn’t seeing anyone, much less anyone old enough to be her father, so who was this guy?
Well, there wasn’t much that she could really do right then, so Celeste went into her bedroom, locked the door behind her, put in earplugs, and tried to sleep. The more she thought about it, though, the more the old guy seemed a little familiar. Where did she know him from? Why didn’t it come to her? It was just on the tip of her mental tongue, and she could not think of it.
Ugh, one way or the other, the mental image of that guy with Jeanne, how foul! Celeste flipped on the television in her room, and managed to get immersed in some old black and white television show on Nick at Nite. Not the most stimulating television, but at least it helped her not focus on what was happening in Jeanne’s room.
The next morning, Celeste debated emerging from her room. She was afraid that the old guy might still be there, probably padding around the kitchen in his boxers and a scraggly old white sleeveless tee shirt. Nasty, she thought, as she plopped back onto her bed and decided to watch one more hour of Saturday morning cartoons before risking the old guy’s presence.
After a perfectly splendidly mindless hour of anime style cartoons, Celeste finally braved the kitchen. Either Jeanne and her… ahem… weren’t up yet, or they had already gone. Celeste poured herself a bowl of cereal, and made a pot of coffee. As she was waiting for the coffee to brew, she finished loading the dishwasher, and started it running.
As she was pouring herself a cup of coffee, Jeanne emerged from the bedroom, looking completely disheveled and hung over. “Water,” she moaned. “And advil.”
Celeste handed her both. Jeanne actually looked more ill than hung over. “Are you ok,” Celeste asked.
Jeanne shook her head, and then grabbed the counter top to steady herself before she fell over. “I remember that I went out last night because I didn’t want to bother you while you weren’t feeling well. I met Jessica and Scott at the Burren. We started talking to some guy Scott knows, and that’s the last thing that I remember. I don’t even remember getting home…”
Celeste swallowed hard. “Let’s call Scott,” she suggested, “and figure out what they remember.”
“What happened, Celeste?” Jeanne asked, sounding more worried.
“I don’t know, Jeanne. Bu t you came home with a really old guy, like older than my dad.”
They dialed Scott’s number, and Celeste put him on speaker phone. “Hey Scott, this is Celeste, and I’ve actually got you on speaker phone, so Jeanne’s here as well.”
Scott laughed. “Is Jeanne hung over? She was crazy last night.”
“That’s actually what we’re calling about… can you tell her specifically what happened last night?”
“We were at the Burren. She was stressed from work, and with you being sick, so she had a beer. A friend of mine from school came over, and we started talking, and he brought some other friends over. Jeanne seemed to be having a good time, and Jessica and I left at about eleven.”
“Oh,” Jeanne said.
“Why, what happened?” Scott asked.
Jeanne made frantic ‘don’t tell him’ motions to Celeste.
“We’re not sure, Jeanne just wants to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.”
“Well, all I can say is that she had a lot more to drink that she usually does, and she was a lot more talkative, but nothing specific. Nothing embarrasing, definitely. Let me call my friend Eric, the guy that she was talking to when we left last night, and see if he remembers anything. I’ll give you guys a call back in a few minutes.”
Jeanne sat there in horror until the phone rang again. She put it on speakerphone. It was Scott.
“I just talked to Eric,” he said. “He says that when he and his friends left, they tried to bring Jeanne with them, but she was talking to and dancing with some old guy, and she insisted that she stay and they go ahead without her. He said that Jeanne didn’t do anything stupid, though, besides that the guy she was talking to was old enough to be her dad.”
Celeste’s eyes widened in horror, and Jeanne calmly said, “Ok, that’s good to know. Thanks, Scott.”
Jeanne put the phone back on its cradle, stood there for a minute, looking calmly horrified. “What did I do, Celeste?” she asked. “I know you saw something or I said something. You wouldn’t look so worried, otherwise. Please just tell me.”
Celeste took a deep breath and said, “Whoever that old guy was, you brought him home. I was sleeping off the headache and the epipen on the couch, and had just woken up. I was flipping around the channels in the living room when you got home. You walked in with an old guy, probably around fifty five or sixty. I didn’t do anything because when you walked in, you looked right at me, smiled and shrugged, as if you knew what you were doing and how it looked, and then you pulled him into your room with you. I was kind of grossed out, so I went into my room, put ear plugs in, and didn’t come out until just before you woke up this morning.”
A sudden thought hit her. “He’s not still in there, is he?”
Jeanne looked worried for a minute, and went into her room to check. “No, he must have left during the night. Who was he, do you know?”
“No, he looked familiar for some reason, but I can’t really place him.”
Jeanne shrugged. “Wouldn’t you know, the first time I go out to have a good time, this happens.”
Celeste had another thought. “Jeanne, if you were drunk, would you accept a drink that someone handed you?”
‘If I was sober, I wouldn’t. But drunk…” she shrugged.
“Come on,” Celeste said, pulling Jeanne out of the kitchen. “Throw some clothes on, grab the clothes you were wearing last night, and your sheets.”
Jeanne filled a plastic shopping bag with the clothes and sheets, and followed Celeste out the door.
“Your doctor’s in Chicago, right?” Celeste asked her.
“Yeah, I haven’t really needed one here since we graduated.”
“Ok, are you alright going to mine? He’s really nice.”
“Sure, whatever. Why are you taking me to the doctor, though? You said yourself that it was me who pulled the guy into the bedroom, not the other way around.”
Celeste looked at her like she was an idiot. “We’ve got a few reasons to choose from, here. First, did you find any used condoms in your room? Because if not, there’s a chance he used one and flushed it, but there’s also a chance he didn’t use one. So there’s AIDS, herpes, the clap, and god knows what else. Then there’s the pregancy issue. I don’t think you want any children from fathers that you don’t remember, do you? So we’ll have to get you a prescription for the morning-after pill. And then on top of all that, does sleeping with a random old guy seem like something that you’d do?” Celese didn’t even bother waiting for a response. “So on top of all the usual worries, there’s the chance that you were slipped something – extasy, a date-rape drug, I don’t know what. All I know is that if you remembered this all happening, I might think it was random weirdness or rebellion or something. But not remember anything when you don’t normally black out, plus acting strangely and irresponsibly with a strange guy that’s not really your type… it just doesn’t add up.”
Celeste and Jeanne walked into Celeste’s doctor’s office. “Not more coconut?” the nurse receptionist questioned when she saw Celeste.
“No, but we’re thinking that my friend, this is Jeanne by the way, was given some kind of date rape drug, and possibly had unprotected sex last night. Can you squeeze her in soon?”
“Right now, actually,” the nurse said. “His next patient isn’t for another forty-five minutes.”
She showed them into an examination room, and Celeste waited outside while Jeanne changed into a hospital gown. When Celeste finally entered the room, Jeanne was sitting on the exam table with the gown neatly tucked around her and under her legs.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Jeanne said. She was blushing a fierce shade of red, and she looked thoroughly humiliated.
“Look,” Celeste said firmly. “Getting so drunk you do something irresponsible is stupid, sure. But think about what all the feminists say – is stupidity punishible by rape? And worse comes to worst, it wasn’t rape and you were willing, you just don’t remember. Well, then now’s the time to take care of it. You’ll take the morning after pill so you know for sure you’re not pregnant, and I’m sure you’ll get a prescription for a heavy duty penicillan so that you’ll know you don’t have herpes or syphilis or the clap or anything like that. It’ll all be ok. Just don’t ever do it again.”
Jeanne looked a little bit better, at least someone was taking responsibility for the situation, since she didn’t feel capable of being in charge at all.
Finally, the doctor came in. “Celeste,” he said, “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Not more coconut, is it?”
“Jeeze, you’d think you medical people would me a little more sympathetic. No, it’s not more coconut. I’ve actually brought my roommate Jeanne in for an exam.” Celeste turned toward Jeanne, waiting for her to explain, but Jeanne just looked at her pleadingly. Finally, Celeste gave in and continued. “Jeanne went out last night for a few drinks, and wound up having more than a few. She doesn’t remember anything past eleven o’clock, and the last time we were able to get a report of what she was doing was around midnight. She showed up at home with a guy older than my father last night, which isn’t normal for her. She doesn’t remember anything that happened last night, and like I said, while she seemed willing last night, it’s not her usually behavior. We’re both concerned that she might have had unprotected sex last night, she doesn’t remember but can’t find a condom. Plus, is there any way to test for some kind of date-rape drug that might make her… more willing, and more able to forget the night?”
The doctor nodded. “Have you showered,” he asked Jeanne.
“No,” she responded quietly.
“We’re going to have to do a rape kit for you. Do you want Celeste to stay, or to wait outside?”
“Celeste, please don’t go.” Jeanne said. She had started to cry a little.
Celeste nodded, and walked over to sit next to Jeanne and hold her hand while the doctor collected the necessary evidence. She kept murmuring “it’s okay,” and “it’s not your fault,” both of which seemed to console Jeanne a little, and help her keep it together.
[###I wonder how this would work with Celeste being the one who was raped by the professor –why would the professor want to rape Jeanne? Or was it just a coincidence?###]
When all the tests were done and all the evidence was collected, the doctor wrong Jeanne some prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Fortunately, she was negative for all sexually transmitted diseases.
Celeste and Jeanne got Jeanne’s prescription filled, and by the time they returned home it was dinner time. Celeste fixed Jeanne a big bowl of chicken noodle soup that she whipped up quickly. Jeanne wasn’t quite “broken” but she wasn’t all there, either.
Celeste wasn’t ready to leave Jeanne there by herself, so she dropped quick email to Matt – “Hey Matt, sorry I couldn’t meet you today, a friend ran into some trouble that I had to help with. Give me a call tonight or tomorrow?” She felt bad for being so brief, but with the way Jeanne was acting, she was afraid to leave her alone in a house with multiple means of committing suicide.
Celeste hadn’t heard back from Matt by Monday, but Jeanne had pulled it together enough to go into work. Celeste figured the element of surprise might work in her favor, so she took a quick shower, and dressed a white corset done on the tightest setting so that her breasts were almost popping out the top. She put on the matching thong underwear and checked the effect in the mirror – to die for. She settled on a crisp but demure white blouse over the top, and a pair of grey dress slacks that rode low enough that you could see the thong strings over the top if her shirt was off.
She felt a little guilty to be plotting a seduction while Jeanne was recovering from a rape, but she foreced herself to think of them as separate and unrelated occurrences. It didn’t help Jeanne at all to let Matt slip away. And hopefully, dressing like this was help convince Matt that what he saw in the doctor’s office wasn’t all there was to her. She wasn’t some fragile piece of glass, waiting to break.
Matt was in his cage, again listening to unreconizeable classical music, and idly tapping his pencil along with the beat, as Celeste walked in. “Hey,” she greeted him. “I’m sorry I didn’t come on Saturday, but I was hoping that you could show me that software today.”
“Hi!” Matt said. “I um, uh, sorry I didn’t call you…”
“But you thought that I was sick and that I needed more time to heal up, or whatever?” Celeste finished for him.
“Yeah,” he looked relieved.
“I’m fine. I was fine on Saturday, even, but my roommate was raped on Friday night, and we spent all day Saturday at the doctor’s office, and I spent most of the day Sunday tryign to convince her that it wasn’t her fault.”
“Oh.” Matt looked vaguely guilty. “I thought that you might be doing something more fun. You weren’t very specific in your email…”
Celeste shrugged. “No problems, I just couldn’t leave her alone this weekend.” She dragged the extra chair around his desk, and put it next to his. “So do you have time to show me that software today?”
He nodded, and flipped on his laptop, and put the papers that he had been writing on in a neat pile in the back corner of the desk.
Celeste got back to her feet, and shut the door. “Let me just shut this,” she said, “so we don’t bother anyone else while you’re showing me.”
She sat back down, and as he started the program, she leaned against him a little, lightly brushing his arm with her left breast. He jerked away slightly, as if expecting her to yell at him for that brief touch. When she appeared not to have even noticed it, he leaned back.
Matt started to explain the steps to create a new index, trying hard to ignore Celeste’s breast pressing against him. ‘And, uh, “ he continued, “you go through and type each word you highlighted and how it’s used, with the page number in the next column. The program will automatically summarize and organize the information. It’s really simple.”
“It’s really hot in here with the door closed, isn’t it?” said Celeste. She unbuttoned two of the buttons at the top of her shirt, and fanned the shirt back and forth for a minute. The amount of shirt she unbuttoned and the fanning motion gave Matt the perfect view of her overflowing cleavage and the satin and lace corset underneath.